


High Hopes

by mangochi



Series: Last Watch [4]
Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 00:42:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18377432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangochi/pseuds/mangochi
Summary: Nearly two years ago, W’Kabi knelt before the council, hands cuffed in vibranium locks behind him as he awaited judgment from those who were once his equals. He remembers what remained of his pride warring with the shame of being brought low, and beneath it all, that simmering rage that made vengeance so sweet, so simple. He remembers Erik, seething beside him. His anger was a blazing thing then, quivering in his limbs, bright in his eyes, and it made it easy enough for W’Kabi to diminish himself in comparison.He does not remember the last time he felt that anger again; it seems a distant echo of a memory, like something from a past life.





	High Hopes

**Author's Note:**

> I dug this out from my drafts yesterday wow

“Walk with me,” T’Challa says.

“I’m working,” W’Kabi answers, stabbing his pitchfork down into the hay. It is a feeble protest. They are cleaning the stables today, and W’Kabi has drawn the short straw. The inside of the stalls are dusty and rank, while Erik lazes in the fresh air, tossing carrots occasionally to the grazing cows.

T’Challa leans a shoulder against the wall and looks pathetically hopeful. “Just for a while,” he coaxes. “Enjoy the good weather.”

It is difficult to refuse a man, W’Kabi has already learned, whom one has befriended for years and betrayed in a matter of days. He sighs and sets down the pitchfork, and he follows T’Challa out into the sun.

They stroll along the rough path behind the stables and winding up the grassy hill, T’Challa making immediately for a tree with a familiar twist to its smooth trunk. They played here often, as children, before they came to know the weight of titles and thrones and the ever changing tides of power, and W’Kabi finds himself glad to see that the view, at least, has not changed.

“Here,” T’Challa says, laying himself out on the grass with a graceful, maddening ease. “This is good, no? You work far too much.”

 _Who was it who delivered this sentence?_ W’Kabi wants to demand, feels it itching at his throat. He grunts instead and settles down, folding his legs stiffly beneath him.

T’Challa has recently taken up the habit of visiting the village both frequently and unannounced, a mingled entourage of Dora Milaje and Jabari trailing alongside him. W’Kabi tells himself he does not mind, that his daily routine remains unaffected by this occasional disturbance, and it would be true, if not for the sudden appearance of Mayowa.

A Jabari representative, T’Challa introduced her as, that first day when they descended from the royal ship and W’Kabi raised a questioning eyebrow at the strange woman who accompanied him. A sign of goodwill from the Jabari lord, an indication of growing progress in the reintegration of the Jabari tribe.

Mayowa stands taller than W’Kabi, than even T’Challa, broad in the shoulders and hips, a wide and easy smile on her smooth face. She is pleasant, curious, open-minded. W’Kabi takes one look at her and is instantly wary for reasons he cannot immediately explain.

No warrior should be that friendly, he has decided since. Strange as it is that she is a member of T’Challa’s guard now, the strangest of all is her taking a liking to the man who once threw him from the falls.

She stands now outside the stables with a handful of the Dora, grinning, and calls out a greeting to Erik as he passes by.

W’Kabi watches as Erik turns to respond, blanket flicked casually over one shoulder, and feels something unidentifiable twist unpleasantly within him. It is a startling enough reaction that he manages to look away, frowning down at his knees.

“N’Jadaka looks as if he is doing well here,” T’Challa says blithely. The unpleasantness in W’Kabi’s chest spreads at the innocuous statement, stiff and defensive, and his fingers dig into the soft earth beneath him. If T’Challa notices, he says nothing of it.

“Why do you call him that?” W’Kabi asks, his voice deliberately even. He looks back down the hill at Erik, hip cocked to the side as he leans upon the enclosure fence and laughs at something Mayowa has said. W’Kabi can hear it from here, bright and ringing. It was not so, before. He wonders when the sound of it changed, wonders why he has noticed it at all.

“That is his name, is it not?” T’Challa asks quizzically. Insistent denial flares instantly, and W’Kabi frowns deeper.

It is a name for another lifetime, the name of a prince, of a king. W’Kabi followed the banner of that name once, that angry, raging declaration against the world, but it is not the name of the man that he has lived alongside these past long months. N’Jadaka would not laugh like this, would not wear Border Tribe garb like this, would not press against his shoulder and share a burning mouthful of whiskey on moonlit nights like-

“I am sorry,” T’Challa says, interrupting the haze of his rambling thoughts, and W’Kabi blinks into the sunlight. “I did not mean to upset you.”

W’Kabi opens his mouth to deny that as well, but the words shrivel to bitter ash in his mouth, and he swallows them back dryly. In the end, he only gives a low grunt, his stomach souring.

“That Jabari woman,” he says abruptly. “The rest of your guard does not usually address us so casually.”

“Mayowa?” T’Challa yawns, wide and shameless like a cat, then raises a hand to his mouth belatedly. It is irritatingly charming, and W’Kabi looks away. It is something Erik would do, he thinks. “She does as she wishes. The Jabari have their own sense of propriety, after all.”

“You would know,” W’Kabi mutters. It is no secret, even here in the outreaches of Wakanda, what the king and the Jabari lord get up to in the privacy of their palaces.

“I would.” T’Challa remains irritatingly unperturbed. “You’re unusually curious. Has she done something to offend?”

W’Kabi watches Erik’s tiny figure as he laughs again, head thrown back, and fights back a grimace. “No,” he says. “Nothing at all.”

***

Nearly two years ago, W’Kabi knelt before the council, hands cuffed in vibranium locks behind him as he awaited judgment from those who were once his equals. He remembers what remained of his pride warring with the shame of being brought low, and beneath it all, that simmering rage that made vengeance so sweet, so simple. He remembers Erik, seething beside him. His anger was a blazing thing then, quivering in his limbs, bright in his eyes, and it made it easy enough for W’Kabi to diminish himself in comparison.

He does not remember the last time he felt that anger again; it seems a distant echo of a memory, like something from a past life.

He takes those thoughts and puts them carefully aside as he climbs out of the bath, the earth-warmed waters dripping from him. Erik has left ahead of him, but W’Kabi finds himself still in the dressing rooms, a thin towel around his waist and his eyes glued on his kimoyo beads. It is displaying, W’Kabi realizes, with no small amount of displeasure, a text transmission from Mayowa.

“We are not allowed unofficial correspondence with members of the royal guard,” W’Kabi reminds, dumping his clothing on the bench by Erik. “You’ll land us another week of night watch.”

“You like the night watch,” Erik says dismissively. “Yo, listen though, I’m gonna be busy tonight, so don’t wait up or nothing.”

W’Kabi snorts. As if he would do such a thing. “What on Bast’s green earth,” he asks, “could you possibly be busy with?” Erik has made less than no effort to befriend the other Border Tribe members in the village, nor any of the envoys from the city. Except, W’Kabi’s treacherous mind supplies, one particular guard.

“This and that,” Erik answers, with a predictable vagueness. It is infuriating, W’Kabi thinks, how similar he and T’Challa can be at the worst of times.

W’Kabi very carefully studies the balled up socks in his hands. “If you are meeting Mayowa,” he says, “you know I do not care.” It is not quite the truth, but he is determined for it to become so.

“Well, hell, why ask if you already knew?” Erik laughs, a bark of sound that W’Kabi once found harsh. Now, he finds it...well, he tries not to find anything of it. “Hey, you listening?”

W’Kabi blinks as the socks vanish from his hands. He looks up, annoyed, to see Erik juggling them deftly, grinning like a devil. The towel is slipping dangerously low on his hips, but that doesn’t stop him from dancing away when W’Kabi makes an aggravated grab for his clothing.

“Stop this,” W’Kabi tells him. It does no good. He might as well have told a six week old calf to mount a battle charge.

Erik jostles closer, tossing the socks higher, and W’Kabi raises a hand in annoyance, intending on shoving him back. He finds himself pressing it instead to Erik’s chest, just to the left of his sternum, and finds that he cannot pull away. Erik’s skin burns, the scars tickling beneath his palm, and W’Kabi wonders if there is not a little of the herb in him still, coursing like violet fire through his veins.

“Gonna have to try harder than that.” Erik’s voice rumbles against him, deeper now at this close of a distance. W’Kabi ought to say something, ought to at least rebuke him for his impudence. He swallows hard and says nothing at all.

Erik watches him, eyes dark and hooded. His lips are parted, and W’Kabi is briefly mesmerized by a glint of gold. _Ridiculous_ , he thinks. A ridiculous man. His thumb twitches of its own accord, nudging against Erik’s nipple, and W’Kabi jerks in surprise at the soft noise that comes from deep in Erik’s throat.

“Get dressed,” he says. His voice is perhaps a little sharper than necessary. He jerks his hand away and, almost as an afterthought, snatches his socks from Erik’s slackened grip. “You’ll catch cold.”  

“You wish.” Erik’s voice is light, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and W’Kabi wonders if it was all in his head. He’s never been the most imaginative of men, but stranger things have happened in these times.

***

It is not the last time Erik disappears for long hours into the night. W’Kabi lies awake in the darkness of his room and listens for the quiet pad of Erik’s footsteps, soft and careful even when drunk. It seems to be a habit he cannot shake, like the sharpness in his bared teeth when he feigns civility, or the way he sits with his back to the corner of the canteen and fiddles with the cutlery.

It is obvious, in the end. Erik has found a warm body to fill his bed, and W’Kabi can hardly blame him for it. That much, he understands; he has seen the loneliness in others who have spent long months, long years in the solitude of these plains. Companionship is often sought out anywhere it can be found, even more so between fellow warriors.

He does not think of the heat of Erik’s skin, of the way the dampness of the air clung to him. The jagged catch of Erik’s breath, the-

 _Mayowa,_ W’Kabi thinks firmly, is more than a capable match. It is a reasonable, logical fact that he turns over repeatedly in the tumult of his own mind. Somehow, it fails to take hold, rolling endlessly in the space behind his eyes.

“You are fond of her.” It comes out more accusing than he intends. It has been weeks now, since this began. What faint hopes that it is only a phase were quickly dashed after the second, and now W’Kabi simply finds that he is tired.

Erik looks up from where he is leaning against the small kitchenette in the corner of W’Kabi’s room, attempting to make coffee. W’Kabi will never understand the difficulty he finds with a machine so simple to use that a child could’ve built it, but he has somehow managed to develop a taste for the bitter sludge that Erik siphons out of the thing day after day.

“Huh?”

“Mayowa,” W’Kabi says. “I hardly thought it needed specifying.”

“Mayowa?” Erik sounds genuinely surprised, and W’Kabi wonders if he thinks he has been discreet. There is absolutely nothing discreet about Erik; he is a fool if he think otherwise. “Sure.”

W’Kabi studies him, slow and thoughtful. “Will you marry her?” he asks. He does not know where the question comes from, but all he can do now is await an answer. It is not so ridiculous a concept- their sentence will be up soon enough, and T’Challa’s favor runs deep. Erik makes an odd choking sound and looks nothing short of incredulous, his mouth working silently.

“I look like the marrying type to you?” he finally responds, strangely guarded. “Jesus. Where’d that come from?”

W’Kabi does not know what to say to that, either. He shrugs, makes a dismissive sound. “Have you taken her to bed?”

Shock, W’Kabi reflects, looks awful on Erik. He gapes like a river fish, eyes wide and dark, and W’Kabi decides he has made enough of a fool of himself for one day. “I wouldn’t blame you, if you did,” he continues, “so there’s no need to hide it.” The words cut at him even as he says them, digging painful hooks into the inside of his chest. “I wish you the best.”

He does not want to hear Erik confirm his suspicions, he realizes. To make real the vague visions just the idea has raised in his head. The thought leaves a bitter taste on his tongue, makes him blink and turn towards the door.

“Hold on a damn second-” W’Kabi finds himself tugged back by the edge of his blanket, and offense spikes hotly in him. Is he a _child_ , to be pulled this way and that so freely? He spins on his heel, mouth open in a ready retort, and Erik slams into him.

The kiss is hard, their teeth clicking together in a painful clash that has W’Kabi’s eyes watering, and he nearly shoves back on instinct before Erik’s hand finds the back of his neck, pulling him in with a muffled groan. There’s an almost panic in the way he jostles close, his heart racing like a jackrabbit against W’Kabi’s chest, and the tight knot sitting in W’Kabi’s throat suddenly folds in on itself.

Erik kisses like a wildfire, and he leaves nothing behind in the ashes. They struggle together for a moment, W’Kabi caught between yanking Erik closer or pushing him away. He settles for smacking a hand against the side of Erik’s head, and he draws the tattered edges of his composure back around him as Erik staggers back, looking impossibly wounded for such a glancing blow.

So it is this simple for him, after all.

“Find someone else to take this out on,” W’Kabi snaps. “Do you think so little of me?” There is a quiet fury in him now, simmering low in his belly. He is not so much of a fool to allow himself to be reduced to this, a _distraction_ , a warm body and nothing else-

“That- that ain’t what I want, you know that!”

W’Kabi crosses his arms, draws himself up stiffly to his full height. It is still below Erik’s, which sends a spike of annoyance through him. “Then what,” he asks, “ _do_ you want?”

Erik stares at him, a muscle jumping furiously in his jaw. He opens his mouth, then scoffs and glances away, gives his head a dismissive shake. “Nothin’,” he says. His voice is thick, like the shitty coffee gurgling behind him. “I don’t want a damn thing.”

W’Kabi takes a breath, and it sticks there, a heavy lump that makes the next breath difficult. “Who, then?” he asks. He tries for a light tone, but it falls painfully flat. If it isn’t a matter of fucking, it’s a matter of the heart, and somehow that twists at him even more deeply. “Mayowa?”

Erik’s eyes snap back to his, wide and incredulous. “Why the hell would I want somebody else,” he says slowly, as if each word is fighting to be restrained, “when I’ve got you?”

Ah.

Somehow, this had never occured to W’Kabi, that this was an option all along. “You’re kidding,” he hears himself say, after a pause that lingers for too long.

Erik stares at him, wild in his disbelief. “Christ,” he says. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

“You were kidding when you pushed me into that dung pile, you were kidding when you tried to teach the calves how to _shake hands_ , you were kidding when-”

Erik kisses him again, and W’Kabi makes muffled noises of outrage.

“Don’t be mad,” Erik mutters, his lips crushed against W’Kabi’s. “You ain’t fun like that.”

“I’m not angry,” W’Kabi says, the denial instinctive despite the giddiness spinning through him. Erik’s tongue presses beseechingly at the line of his mouth, hot and slick and hungry, and W’Kabi allows him to deepen the kiss, to soothe and soften the few sharp edges still jagged in his chest.

Erik pulls away just long enough to huff against his cheek, his breath damp and warm. His fingers are trembling, W’Kabi realizes, fumbling over the the back of W’Kabi’s head. “Don’t be jealous, either. Dumbass.”

W’Kabi thumps a fist into his ribs for that, but only halfheartedly.

“I’m serious! Mayowa…she…” Erik struggles, to W’Kabi’s immense satisfaction. “She just...she thinks my Xhosa’s funny, y’know? Weird fuckin’ accent and all. We’ve been practicing.”

“It _is_ a weird accent.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to say something here.” Erik thumps his forehead against W’Kabi’s, hard enough to ache. “It’s not what you’re thinking. Me and her ain’t like that.”

“Like what?” W’Kabi has no intention on making this easy, but he slides his palms along Erik’s sides, if only to feel the way Erik’s breath catches and stutters.

“Now you’re just tryin’ to piss me off,” Erik breathes, but he sways closer nevertheless. “Like you don’t know what I want.”

“Take it, then,” W’Kabi says, reckless in the growing fever around them. He drops his hands lower, squeezing Erik’s ass in passing, and fights to keep a straight face when Erik jumps. “Once, you said you could take the world.”

“Yeah, well. Fuck the world, I got all I need right here.” Erik takes a handful of W’Kabi’s blanket and drags him up on his toes into another kiss.

Somewhere along the line, Erik slams him back against the bed, which is predictable enough. Then- unpredictably- he rolls W’Kabi on top of him, quick and jostling, as if W’Kabi will change his mind if given the time for a breath. W’Kabi makes a disapproving sound at the treatment, and he patiently rearranges them so that Erik’s grip is looser, less smothering.

Erik, unexpectedly, does not resist, and W’Kabi tucks the knowledge away for further exploration, when the air between them is not so fraught with crackling tension, so thick that he can taste the desperation in Erik’s groan as he tugs at the clasps of W’Kabi’s blanket.

It falls around them in a soft blue heap, and Erik promptly kicks it to the floor. W’Kabi opens his mouth to protest, only for Erik to kiss him in return, golden incisors catching at W’Kabi’s lip. It stings, afterwards, and W’Kabi runs his tongue over the feeling automatically.

“Wanna mark ya up,” Erik mutters, the words slurring clumsily. He mouths at W’Kabi’s neck, sucking distractedly and moving on far too quickly to bruise the skin. “Wanna taste ya, wanna- fuck, W’Kabi, c’mere-”

W’Kabi claps a hand over Erik’s mouth, his ears hot. “I’m already here,” he reminds him, but something curls pleasantly within him at the raw heat in Erik’s voice, the possessive clutch of Erik’s hands over his shoulders. The displacement in his chest settles, clicks into place at the tightening of Erik’s fingers in the folds of his clothing, and he lowers his hand to meet the next searching kiss.

Erik, to his credit, manages a dogged persistence that W’Kabi can do little to resist. W’Kabi pushes his fingers tentatively into his braids, then tightens his grip when Erik makes a low rumble.

“You wanna-?” Erik’s voice catches on the uplift of the question, followed by a deliberate thrust of his hips that has few other meanings. His hands tighten hopefully on W’Kabi’s waist, balling in his sash, and W’Kabi is sorely, achingly tempted.  

Then he thinks of their work schedule for the next morning, and he forces himself to lean back, Erik’s thighs tightening around him as if to keep him in place. “We are on maintenance duty tomorrow.”

“So?” Erik squirms impatiently beneath him. W’Kabi fends off his grasping hands, pushing them back against the bed, and smirks when Erik swallows audibly.

“ _So_ , you degenerate, if you would like to be able to walk the next day, we should stop this now.”

Erik snorts, but there’s a breathlessness now to it. “You think I care ‘bout that? C’mon, just-”

W’Kabi flicks a finger against his jaw, then bends and gives a consoling kiss. Erik grumbles against him, shifting his weight unrepentantly. It is satisfying, W’Kabi has to admit, to see him like this. The king’s own blood on his bed between his knees, his shirt riding high on his belly and waistband low on his hips, dignity tossed aside and replaced by thinly veiled desperation.

W’Kabi tells him as much.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You are a disaster.”

“Yeah,” Erik agrees. This insight does not stop him from shoving W’Kabi’s trousers down his thighs and staring down at him openly. It would be hilarious, W’Kabi reflects, if his heart is not pounding madly against his bones, every inch of him quivering with resigned anticipation.

“Stop looking,” W’Kabi finally says. There is a strangeness to Erik’s expression, his teeth pressed to his lip and his brows raised high. It takes a moment to realize that Erik is, of all the fucking things, _impressed_.

“Goddamn,” Erik says. “Goddamn,” he says again, when he wraps a large hand around W’Kabi’s cock and pulls at him roughly.

W’Kabi makes a low, muted sound and twists his fingers around Erik’s shirt. There is something terribly wrong with him. There must be, for this to be happening, for him to find himself on the verge of an embarrassingly brief rut like an unrestrained youth, to give in to some _childish_ jealousy like he has not led an army, has not led a tribe, has not sat at the right hand of _kings._ He forces his hips still, if only to keep them from jerking forward into Erik’s damnably unforgiving grip, and yanks at Erik’s shirt involuntarily when he feels Erik hard and hot beneath him. If not for its material and weave, the fabric would’ve long torn by now.

“Let me hear you,” Erik mutters, and W’Kabi realizes only then that he has been biting back his voice, strangling them into harsh, wordless pants. “Fuck you, W’Kabi, let me hear.”

“Make me,” W’Kabi mouths exaggeratedly, and Erik scowls. His free hand makes a stealthy path for W’Kabi’s ass, and W’Kabi swats it away, pinning it to the bed beneath his knee. He smirks when Erik looks outraged, and grinds down again, this time aiming deliberately.

In the end, neither of them last long after that. Erik comes with a loud string of curses, his hands digging hard enough into W’Kabi’s back to leave it aching, and W’Kabi follows with the sound of his own name breathed against his cheek.

“Fuck,” Erik announces, his voice muffled against W’Kabi’s shoulder.

It is a long moment before W’Kabi can find it in him to respond. “Not bad,” he finally says. He curls a hand around the back of Erik’s neck and thumbs slowly, wonderingly at the base of his skull.  

“Not bad? Not _bad?_ ” Erik looks prepared to turn him over and prove him otherwise on the spot.

W’Kabi shoves at his shoulder. “Calm yourself, consider it a compliment.”

“Not bad..” Erik grumbles, settling onto his back. “Fuck you, I’ll show you _not bad_.”

“I’m sure you will.” W’Kabi finds himself grinning up at the ceiling, his limbs loose and heavy. Beside him, Erik burns with the heat of the panther, his leg tangled around W’Kabi’s.

…

“Mayowa has requested an extension of stay,” T’Challa informs W’Kabi, his arms folded on the top of the fence. It is a beautiful day, made more so by the distant sounds of Erik’s cursing from the inside of the stable. “Perhaps a permanent post will be made for her in my guard.”

“Is that so?” W’Kabi asks. He breaks a carrot in half and offers it to a passing cow. She snuffles wetly into his hand, nose soft and velvety against his palm.

“You seem unaffected.” T’Challa’s eyes are dancing, and W’Kabi refuses to acknowledge it. “And here I thought perhaps you’d be disappointed by the news.”

“Is it a habit of kings,” W’Kabi asks the cow, “to spend their time striving to disappoint?”

T’Challa laughs long and hard at that, until he’s left draped over the fence, wheezing slightly with mirth. “Well, in any case,” he says, when he is able to again, “I am glad you approve.”

“What does it matter if I approve?”

“It matters.” T’Challa straightens, his mouth still twitching. “To Erik, most of all.” He does not say the name of a prince that never was, and there is something terribly knowing about the way he looks at W’Kabi.

W’Kabi makes a vague sound and looks back towards the stable. He can see Erik’s silhouette moving among the stalls, his blanket thrown back over his shoulders.He can make out Erik’s silhouette among the stalls, blanket thrown back over his shoulders as he wields his shovel with a furious determination.

It will be two years soon, he realizes, since the beginning of their probation. The third summer they will spend together. He thinks of Erik pushing him into the watering hole to teach him how to swim, of Erik covered head to toe in dust as he tries to wrangle the growing calves back into their pen at sunset, of the two of them sharing a drink in the cool summer night. Erik sees him looking and he straightens, lifting a hand in greeting. There’s straw sticking to his shoulders, his hair in disarray.

“He’s happy here,” T’Challa says. A question, an observation, and an answer all in one.

W’Kabi raises his own hand, twitches his fingers and feels his mouth draw towards a smile. “He belongs.”


End file.
